Hezbollah hit with exploding pagers, blames Israel

What happened

Exploding pagers killed at least 11 people in Lebanon on Tuesday, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounded about 2,800 others, health officials said. Hezbollah said it was the target of the attack and eight of its fighters were among the dead. Lebanon and Hezbollah blamed Israel. An American official told The Associated Press that Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — in which small amounts of explosives were reportedly hidden in the pagers and detonated remotely — after it was over.

Who said what

Thousands of pagers across Lebanon buzzed for a few seconds at 3:30 pm local time then exploded, reportedly after receiving a triggering message from Israeli intelligence. Hezbollah turned to pagers to communicate after its leaders warned in February that Israel could use cellphones to track and eavesdrop on fighters. The pagers were from a batch of about 5,000 Hezbollah ordered months ago, weaponized by Israel's Mossad before delivery, security forces told Reuters. They carried the Gold Apollo brand, but the owner of the Taiwanese company said these pagers were made under license by a company in Europe.

Two Hezbollah operatives had raised suspicions about the pagers, Al-Monitor said. Israel decided to detonate the devices rather than see its long-planned operation foiled, three U.S. officials recounted to Axios. "It was a use-it-or-lose-it moment," one U.S. official said. The original plan, a former Israeli official told Axios, was to blow up the pagers as a surprise blow in an all-out war against Hezbollah. 

"We were not aware of this operation and were not involved," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. "We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians," Hezbollah said, and Israel will "for sure get its just punishment."

What next?

Israel's Security Cabinet threatened late Monday to escalate the tit-for-tat conflict with Hezbollah so thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes near the Lebanon border. After yesterday's bloodshed, Axios said, U.S. and Israeli officials suggested "Hezbollah could launch a major attack against Israel in revenge, or it could be deterred in the short term by the possibility that there might be more security breaches it doesn't know about and that Israel could exploit."

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